The Ainu had an oral literature in the form of long poems called yukara.
(There were no Ainu letters, and we have no written record.) The poems
were recited or, rather, sung, to individual melodies by a storyteller
of the village. The storyteller (or yukara singer, we might say)
was, in most cases, an old man or woman. But the storyteller had no monopoly;
everybody in the village learned how to recite yukara. Some were
better than others in recitation and memory, and one of the ablest was
selected as the official storyteller of the village. He recited the poems
during the evenings of ceremonial days, or, if asked by the villagers,
on ordinary evenings.

At one time yukara were epics believed to be the voice of the
gods describing their ceremonies. In Ainu language, yukara originally
meant "to imitate" or "to mimic." They were always told in the first person
and always ended "So said the god." This indicates yukara may have
begun as the ceremonial songs or prayers of the shamans.

Later, yukara became poetry that, characteristically, told of
the acts and loves of a young hero called Poiyawumpe, a god's son
brought up by human cousins. Just, generous, and brave, he fought for,
and finally won, a beautiful girl he had rescued from a disaster, from
a "bad guy," or from a devil. These stories, too long to be told in one
night, were comparable to the Homeric epic.

Yukara were passed from generation to generation. Just before
they vanished from the Ainu culture, the few now known to us were discovered
and collected by Dr. Kyosuke Kindouche, former professor at the University
of Tokyo, Faculty of Letters, who translated them into Japanese.

In addition to the yukara, the Ainu had lullabies, love songs,
rounds, and simple dances. Among them, the "Dance of Cranes," which imitates
the movements of the birds, was particularly popular. The Ainu possessed
no musical instruments, but they beat time with their hands for their songs
and dances.